Ali Louis Bourzgui didn’t grow up jamming out to “Pinball Wizard” and “Baba O’Riley.”
The actor, following all, was born additional than 3 many years immediately after The Who’s to start with album “My Generation” arrived out in 1965.
His technology is Z.
And nonetheless, very last August, the lucky 24-calendar year-outdated was a VIP at their concert in England as he chatted backstage with famous guitarist Pete Townshend.
“I went and hung out with Pete and obtained to sit down and chat to him for a number of hours,” Bourzgui instructed me about lunch at Joe Allen.
“And then I bought to sit backstage — like halfway onstage — and enjoy Roger [Daltrey] and the band complete with the whole orchestra.”
That show at the Royal Sandringham Estate lasted four several hours.
“Now,” he reported, “I’m a significant admirer.”
And they’re diehards of his, as well. Bourzgui is the crack-out star of “The Who’s Tommy” on Broadway, Townshend’s musical in which the youthful phenom rocks out as the title “deaf, dumb and blind kid” who gets a worldwide sensation.
Bourzgui is on the verge of big points as properly — thankfully considerably less dramatically so than Tommy.
His Broadway debut is a knockout — the most remarkable of the past quite a few many years. The actor’s critiques last thirty day period have been euphoric (together with a 4-star rave from The Post), and it’s difficult to come across a theater agent in city who does not desperately wish he was their consumer.
Townshend, who initial viewed Bourzgui deal with the complicated position of Tommy Walker at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in the summer time of 2023, mentioned he was born for the section.
“Ali has not necessary the variety of rock ’n’ roll anointment that I have furnished to some of the actors in Tommy in the earlier,” Townshend informed The Submit.
“He has not necessary a lecture about what helps make a star, and what can cause a star to slide. He just receives it.”
And, the “Tommy” composer extra, “he brings youth and excellent looks and a healthier head of curly black hair.”
Bourzgui, who is Moroccan American, grew up in Pittsfield, Mass., in a family members of artists and performers. Long right before he grew to become the Wizard of Pinball, his first function in sixth quality was in “The Wizard of Oz.”
“A munchkin,” he mentioned.
Right after researching at Ithaca College or university, Bourzgui moved to New York City, wherever he lives with a roomie and a cat, and toured the place in the musical “The Band’s Check out.”
And then, while operating in Chicago, he received termed in for “Tommy.”
“When he walked in, he seemed clean, he seemed diverse,” director Des McAnuff claimed of his audition for the exhibit. “He was ideal out of college, but there was certainly a calmness.”
Bourzgui remembers that momentous day a minor in a different way.
“I was truly freaking out!,” he explained. “I’m glad it did not study like that.”
In a kismet moment, the actor uncovered he landed the component as he was walking out of a different Broadway clearly show into Situations Square.
Zen in human being, onstage Bourzgui is positively nuclear. He has a stadium rocker electricity (aided by yoga and an espresso shot a working day) and an otherworldly voice as he, a baritone, wails tenor music like “Sensation” and “I’m Totally free.”
“What he delivers to the seem is a form of heat and depth,” McAnuff claimed. “A gravitas.”
Eight instances a 7 days, when Bourzgui and the “Tommy” cast sing “Listening To You” at the end of their exhibit, a swell of viewers associates who are, ahem, a tad older than he is, leap to their toes, sway and pump their fists.
“It comes about with no fail — each and every functionality,” Bourzgui stated, in awe of the crowd’s response.
“It’s superb that folks sense that temper, and that it excites them. Just for any individual to be able to [join in]. Which is the complete place of theater.”
